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Fish Stock

A clear broth made by simmering fish bones, onion, peppercorns, mace, bay leaf, milk, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Fish Stock

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place all ingredients in a saucepan.

  2. Add enough water to cover the bones.

  3. Bring to a slow boil.

  4. Simmer gently for 5 to 10 minutes.

  5. Do not simmer longer to avoid bitterness.

  6. Strain the stock before use.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Milk + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fish bones and trimmings
Provide the main savoury flavour and body of the stock.
Milk
Adds a mild richness and softens the fish flavour.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness as it softens in the liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 5 to 10 minutes. Boiling hard or simmering too long extracts bitter compounds and cloudiness from the bones, so keep the liquid barely moving and stop on time.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, clove, milk, mace):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, clove, milk, mace. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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